Stanleys at Riverside

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are very happy, safe and secure at this extremely welcoming and friendly nursery. Staff plan exceptional opportunities to help all children make excellent progress in their learning. There is superb support for children's physical development. Children use a range of tools as they pump and squeeze water and oil into bowls of flour to make dough. This encourages them to use their hands in different ways and develop their smaller muscles. Children make marks with sticks and mud on a large screen. They use their whole bodies, stretching their arms and standing on their toes. This helps to develop their larger muscles, balance, and coordination in preparation for later tasks, such as early writing.

Children's behaviour is remarkable. Staff encourage children to be respectful, take turns and help others. Staff are excellent role models who have high expectations of all the children in their care. Children grow rapidly in confidence and independence. For example, staff support young children to spread their crackers and chop the fruit they have chosen at snack time. Children love coming to nursery. Those who are new to the setting settle quickly. Children show great enthusiasm for the activities on offer and are highly motivated to learn.

What does the early years setting do well and what does it need to do better?

• Staff are highly skilled and well qualified. They have secure relationships with children in their care. Children and staff form very strong bonds and clearly enjoy each other's company. Support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities is superb. Staff use a number of ways to support children to communicate. For example, they use gestures, pictures and sign language. Staff work extremely closely with other education and health professionals. This helps to provide consistent strategies to support children's learning and development. The manager and staff provide exceptional support to the families of children in their care. Parents speak very highly of staff and the quality of education and care they provide. Parents feel fully informed about their children's learning.
• Support for children's developing communication and language skills is excellent. Staff introduce new vocabulary as children learn about conkers at the nature table and investigate with magnets. Children with English as an additional language make exceptional progress. There is outstanding support for children to flourish in both English and their home language. Staff work with interpreters to share information and help gather the views of parents. Through outings, food and stories, staff provide children with rich opportunities to learn about language and communities beyond their own.
• Staff provide excellent opportunities for children to access fresh air and exercise. Children learn directly about nature as they grow and eat carrots and potatoes from the nursery's vegetable plot. Children learn first hand about life cycles and how to care for living things. They discuss how the caterpillars they look after turn into butterflies before their release. These experiences contribute highly to children's personal and emotional well-being.
• Children have rich opportunities to learn about and understand technology. They learn which buttons and sequences to use when taking photographs of each other with toy cameras. Children explore with lights and torches. They concentrate fully as they skilfully steer remote-controlled cars under arches as part of an obstacle course. Staff encourage children to make their own obstacle courses with resources outside. This helps them to understand scale and how to sequence, connect, build and position the equipment.
• Staff provide excellent opportunities for children to develop their mathematical skills. For example, children learn in detail about size as they measure sunflowers, building bricks and each other with measuring tapes. They learn in depth about direction and position as they play group games with their friends using large stretches of elastic. Children compare the sizes of pumpkins at the nature table. They count the number of strikes they make with hammers on lengths of wood as they play outside.
• The manager and staff have a deep understanding of where children are in their learning. They have an excellent knowledge of what to do next to help them make progress. The manager is inspirational and has a very strong vision for the nursery. She has very high standards and supports staff exceptionally well.